A popular Social Service Department fundraising program in Montville recently got an upgrade.

The department, led by Director of Senior & Social Services Kathie Doherty-Peck, has run a tag sale out of the Fair Oaks community center for years, in what Doherty-Peck called a “dingy” room.

The department installed a box at the town’s transfer station where people can drop household objects that are still in good condition. Volunteers — members of various town groups looking for community service activities — collected the items and brought them to Fair Oaks for a weekly sale.

The sale outgrew its room at Fair Oaks, though, and has moved to a small building across a parking lot from the Town Hall building on Route 32.

Each weekend, a different nonprofit organization runs the sale and collects the proceeds.

The program lets Montville residents donate their old stuff rather than throwing it out, saving the town the fees to dispose of it at the transfer station.

“It’s kind of a win-win situation,” Doherty-Peck said. “It’s a great program.”

The shelves in the store are filled with discounted items, for sale every Saturday and Sunday.

“We have everything from household items to books to toys to holiday stuff,” she said. Some of the items are brand new, some in boxes.

And Doherty-Peck wants as many people to know that the sale has moved as possible.

The Fair Oaks building, she said, was a less-than-ideal location.

“I’ve been trying for years get it here on Route 32,” she said. “If you’re not from Montville, you have no idea where Fair Oaks is.”

So the former Social Services building at 310B Route 32 is now a store, open each Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Anyone can donate items at the transfer station or at the tag sale’s building on weekends.

“There’s been times when our box is just full to the brim,” Doherty-Peck said.

m.shanahan@theday.com